Day Ten - HRI Summer Camp 2016

Contributer -  Margarita Baghdasaryan

My sleepy eyes flatter to the sound of my alarm clock.

I reach around the pillow, carelessly bumping into Asya who’s sleeping next to me, and finally find my cellphone. Its 4:25 am. I’m tempted to go back to sleep but we planned a morning hike with the village teenagers and I don’t want to miss it. I stumble out of my makeshift bed, and make my way downstairs to get ready.
From our group of 15 eager hikers only five of us manage to get up. A few of the village teenagers are already waiting for us outside. I’m the last one to get out of course, once we gather we set out for our early morning hike. The sun begins to rise as we make our way through the sleepy village. One by one the village kids join us as we pass by their houses, and by 5:20 am our group reaches the mountain and we begin to climb. The mountain path is rugged and rough, and the skies are gloomy but our steps are firm and our hearts are light.

With each step we climb higher and higher and panoramic view of the village and its surrounding mountains suddenly come to view. It’s breathtaking, humbling, standing there on the rocky mountain and staring out into the distance with the morning breeze whistling through the mountains I feel calm, elated. The grandness of the mountains around me overwhelm my sense of self, I feel my own insignificants. Suddenly my moment of bliss is interpreted by a loud burst of laugher, I chuckle as I overhear the last words of Samvel’s joke, and continue to climb higher. As we reach halfway up the mountain it begins to drizzle. The morning skies weren’t lying after all. We reach about half way up and hit the road that cuts through the mountain, we decide not to climb any further and instead make our way back to the village by fallowing the road. We need to be back before 9 for our classes after all. As we walk back we begin to learn more and more about one another. Even Artyom who is usually extremely shy opens up; we learn about the village, about each other and also about ourselves. We skip in the rain, and share Lilo’s Cliffbar. Life at that moment couldn’t have been better.

We make it back to camp just in time to prep for classes, having had an amazing start to a wonderful day.